My Personal Struggle To De-callous My Life

By Mallory

So I don't know about you, but my feet are kind of gross. Since it's summertime and my feet are getting a lot more time out in public, spending a little clean-up time on them is a must. For me, it's callouses on the bottoms of my feet that I'm constantly trying to scrub off. I have some foot lotion from Bath and Body Works that I'm pretty sure is magical. (Heel of Approval--I recommend buying it on sale.)

While I’m being honest, I have to confess that my heart is sometimes calloused, too. You know what I mean? I think that sometimes it’s really easy to become hardened by things that hurt us. Right now I'm talking specifically about hurtful situations between people. It's so easy to hate someone who hurt or rejected you.

I’ve let myself roll my eyes and brush someone off if they've hurt me, or I'm worried they're going to. I’ve come up with all of these scenarios in my head where I can finally hurt them back with some ranting speech or a scathing comment. Or I’ve just wallowed in my anger toward them, or at God, or at everything around me, for a long, long time.

And, yeah, these things haven't worked too well for me so far. My bitterness never solves anything. And sometimes I end up tuning out people who really don't deserve it. If someone has hurt me, I let myself slip into bitterness because it feels kind of tougher than being flat-out sad or disappointed. It's a way to fight back, to guard ourselves from anyone who hurts us. But it really does nothing except make me sound crazy. It does NOT heal us. That’s Satan’s trick... he doesn’t want us to heal at all. In fact, I would say that Satan is probably a huge fan of bitterness.

The only thing that can rescue us from this whole ugly scenario is God's power to change our hearts. It's like God pops in and says, “Hey! Guess what? You're not allowed to hate this person anymore, because I said so!” (Colossians 3:8-17) It's really amazing, the way God works. I can have the biggest hang-up over the way someone acts or treats me. And then something incredible happens. Maybe I'll have this great conversation with that person or find a way to identify with them. Or I'll complain about them to a friend who challenges my bad attitude (this is SO uncomfortable but refreshing) and I have to bite my tongue and spend some time reevaluating my opinion. Or this 'bad' person does something nice for me totally out of the blue and I get to feel really, really sheepish.

Yeah, that’s totally God.

Sometimes this situation looks different, and you have been very seriously hurt or wronged by someone. That makes this lesson in forgiveness even harder -when it seems like there is no reason to love this person and the only answer is... we have to. If we immerse ourselves in hate, Satan wins... and we didn't get any real healing, did we?

So, as hard as it sounds, God doesn’t want us to be bitter. He doesn’t want us to hate. So when we are hurt and brokenhearted, we can’t revert to that. There’s no magical foot cream to make this go away in a couple of days but that’s where our merciful God comes in to help us. And he can help you through your hurt where anger and bitterness can’t.

Here's a passage in Psalms that encourages me so much (about this issue, and in general.)

“Let me hear joy and gladness,
let the bones you have crushed rejoice.
Hide your face from my sins and block out my iniquity.
Create in me a pure heart, O God,
and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence
or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me....
...The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit,
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.”

(Psalm 51:8-12, 17, NIV)

Comments

[MAD21]

Terrific article, Mallory! As a parent, I am finding more and more I feel like saying, "because I said so." How true it is the God himself probably wants to say to us that all the time!